New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-05-08


! frequent acquaintance" In 1904 Hawthorhe
wrote from Liverpool:
If L were In your position, think that should
make nv home on this side of the water, tnouR1
always with an indefinite and neverto- d
intention to go back and die in my native ANA:
| America is good land for young people, Dnt hot
for those who are past their prime. 1t is Impossible
TO grow old comfortably there, for nothing Keeps
doiichtfuly sluggish here it is so pleasant to find
| people holding on to old ideas and hardly now
beginning to dream of matters that are already old
with US / have had enough of progress. Now
want to stand stock still or rather to 60 BACK
| twenty years OF So and that is what seem
| 10 have done 10 coming to England. Ihen' 100,
IL is 40 agreeable to find self relieved from the
tyranny Of pnoe OPINION H az aey Ia from
| what we have left behind as: A man oil indvlluaI-
ity and refinement can certainly i've lar more com
| fortably here-provided he has the means TO i've
at all-than in New England. Belt owned, however,
that sometimes feel tug at my very heartstrlngs
| whsr | think of my old home ana trends
| In the second volume of the Life" Hawthorne
described visit to Evanss famous supper rooms in
Covent Garden the Cave of Harmony immortal
lied IN The Newcomes'9, where the proprietor
received him with great honor and de-
clared that the dream of his existence waste see
| Hawthorne Longfellow. Emerson ana
Dr. Claiming seated together at one o.
| his tables Thomas G. Appleton describes a sImi-
lar scene IN the present volume. He went to the
rooms with George Ticknor. Thackeray and Mack
ntosh:
We had seat of honor at the head of the table
and nice copies of the songs were gwen Us. Mucn
| mention was made of you, and the earnest
request that you would favor by a visit when you
character worthy Of Dickens. In the midst of
beefsteaks and tobacco he dlated on the charms OF
early editions ard showed us some, pepreca.iH9
the character of the music he nndged me anu halt
| that like myself he should prefer Beethoven ana
Mozart, but if he gave them he should starye Inc
singing was chiefly comic ana mot o" had Sno
lovely boy with lovely voice piping clear, sweet
and high like a lark. Thackeray was IN raptures
with that boy.
Charles Sumner describing visit to the seat of
William Stirling afterward Sir William Stirling
Maxwell, tells Longfellow strange anecdote:
Among the guests there was Mira. Norton, as
beautiful os ever. donna sublime In the course OF
long day with her your name was mentioned and
then for a long time nothing else. lShe mas rend
" Evangeline" some twenty times. and thirhs III
the most perfect poem in the language. Stirring mas
read it to Ler aloud The scene on the Lake
Atchafalaya, where the two lovers pass each otner,
Ale considered so typical of life and so suggestive
that she bad n seal cut with that name upon ~
Shortly after the King OF tho Belgians, Leopold;
visiting her spoke of Evangehe ana as ,xes
suggestive of experiences in life. and added that
he was about to have 1t cut on a seal. 10 ms
astOnishment she then showed him hers she mas
often been on the point of writing 10 yon, put
checked herself by saying what VIII nc care LOT
met" have promised her some OF your verses IN
your own handwriting as an autograph. Ion Will
not dishOnor my draft
Some of tho stories of borcs blum
derers. and intruders. who became ter
rbly frequent in the poets later years are
very droll. In several minds Longfellow seems TO
have been COMPOUNDED with earlier and still
greater poet A stranger called to SEQ Washngtons
Headquarters and asked LOngfeow if Shake
speare did not live somewhere about there. told
him knew no such person in tbs nelghborhood.
A similar thing happened at the L0ngfellow house
in Portland, where n mao asked II Dit. Snakes
peare, or some such name, was not born there.
An Irish mason, to whom Longfellow babe
good morning IN the street. straightway joined
him with the remark 81 am glad TO speak to
poet, / have mesef brother in the port, who Is a
drunkard and poet TINS was matched By an
Italian woma; she brought Longfellow little
Christmas-tree made by her sou, who had a great
talent for music" and being asked if he played any
| instrument she answered, On, yes: he goes round
with a hand-organ and n little monkey"
One of LouGfellOw's treasures was Cole
ridges inkstand. He showed 1t TO
rustic visitor saying Perhaps Inc
Ancient Mariner was written from this" The
stranger looked blank for moment and then asked,
And The Old Oaken Bucket who done thati
Another visitor remarked. on being shown lovely
little painting of Europa by Albani, a chromo-
itbograph, presume" as this the house where
Longfellow was borni" asked lady of the poet rs
he stood by his own door. "No, he was not born
here "Did he die herel" Not yet" Are
Won Ioppfellowi" 81 am" II thought you died
two years ago"
| "This morning counted the letters to be an
swered on my table. They are ffty-two. Thus is
| nv life rddled to pieces" Most OF the letters OF
course wero from strangers asking favors. a lady
at the West wrote for one hundred autographs to
be distributed TO guests at party. Fourteen
callers in the afternoon" is ono OF the pathetic
lines in the journal. This forenoon fourteen cali
ers. thirteen of them English" "a gentleman in
Maine wants me to read and crlticise an
Epic Poem which he has written on the
Creation, the six days work. which
he saws is done up in about 600 lines.
"A stranger in the West asks IN, to write for
him two poems on friendship, or subject like
that for the album of a young lady who is very
particular friend lie asks me also to send the
bill with the articlcs' "A letter from Mr. -.
| of Washington a fierce and unrecoDs5 ruced ,
rebel and an entire stranger, asking me to defray
the expense of publishing his Analytical Essays
on the Great Poets, which some OF his
friends tell him are the most eloquent and
beautiful compositions in the English language.
| Ateacher in Western college writes: Please
in form me whether or not your feelings in
sympathy with your immortal thought when you
wrote The Bridge" An invitation to Burns
dinner in New-York states that :" it will be in fact,
as it were, not merely meeting of mental and
moral giants, but, metaphorcally speaking, a
conncil Of literary giants" "Only think of it!
exclams the poet. "What dinner party!"
A note gives O statement of the income earned
by Longfellow from literary labor He kept q
record of up to the end of 1882 and the largest
received IN any year to that date was $500. This
was principally for the Poets and Poetry OF
Europe; original composition brought him much
less. although in 1852 some of his most notable
things were on themarket, including "Evangeline'
and "The Golden Legend In fact be had reached